A 64bit Archlinux install on a 166GBP OCZ 120GB Nocti SSD - mSATA SATA-II - Read
280MB/s Write 260MB/s from Ebuyer went well. I can't verify the SSDs speeds, but they are much faster than the Seagate 500GB Momentus XT Hybrid SSD in my Archlinux SSD upgrade from Ubuntu.

I opted for syslinux and I can boot into Windows uncommenting a chainload
stanza in /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg or by using the Thinkpad own BIOS boot
menu. No more bloated Grub for me, and syslinux does allow you to alter the
cmdline. Bonus.

With MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave) and
/etc/conf.d/cpufreq:governor="ondemand" configured, I do drop down to 800mhz
on all 4 processors. However the fan unlike my X201 is pretty much permanently
on. Argh! NOISE... It is pretty hot on the side, so the X220 seems to
exhibit some cooling issues. I'm not sure who to turn to. I don't think
there is any point trying to turn off the noisy fan if it feels hot to the
touch! I did find a ridiculously long forum thread on the X220 fan's
issues.

Another problem is the "Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (rev 34)"
wireless. Arch's wifi-select wlan0 doesn't seem to want to join an open
network. The problem seems similar to an issue documented with my X201 and
DHCP IP lease attempt failed on Archlinx. I've also
found general complaints about the Intel iwalgn
driver. My workaround is to sudo
iwconfig wlan0 essid praze, sudo iwconfig wlan0 key off & sudo dhcpcd
wlan0 manually to get connected!

Another issue is the card reader. mmcblk0: timed out sending r/w cmd command,
card status 0x700, sdhci/mmcblk0 b0rks with errors and REGISTER DUMP (mmc0)
all over the shop when I put in an sdcard, which works fine on the X201.
Found an Arch post of the same
topic, which says the
problem might be fixed in Linux 3.1. I'm running Linux x220 3.1.0-4-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 7 22:47:18 CET 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux atm. Works now fine in 3.1.1-1-ARCH.

The 9 cell battery only seems to get 4.5hrs out of it. There is probably some
tweaking I can do. Doesn't help that powertop doesn't work because it isn't
ported to /sysfs IIUC. The 9 cell upgrade wasn't much money, but I think I
would have gone for the smaller battery now, knowing what I do now.

I like the new wider & clearer screen. It suits me well with the rather excellent tiling window
manager dwm. The little webcam (HD 720p) is also an
improvement over the one embedded in the screen in the X201. I also think the
keyboard is slightly better too, with the fat ESC & Delete keys that suit a
vim user well.

Of course I disabled the touchpad/Trackpad in favour of the Trackpoint "nipple" in the BIOS, but
it is unnerving to accidentally depress it from time to time as I think the
case is falling apart (which it isn't).

Occasionally the Windows hard drive spins up and makes a funny noise, even
though it's not in use. Not sure what I can do about this... perhaps I should
take it out. Update: I just removed it and saved some weight. Running solely off mSata.

Volume on the X220 is quite low, compared to the X201. Almost too low to watch
a movie.

I must say buying a laptop from http://shop.lenovo.com/ (powered by Digital
River) was a little frustrating. It exhibited a myriad of problems, most of
which I've cleared my mind off, less I go mad.

Timing out (joy at having to pick all the parts I want again ...)

Failed to login (I think my login is for the US site which doesn't work in the UK site), ended up ordering without an account, completely daft

Awful, god awful forms

Conflicting information about the on-site warranty, needed to call up to clarify this

The TL;DR version is that I'm having an embarrasing non-sensical emotional
break down since I'm having to switch back to using a Nexus S after using a
Iphone4 secretly for the past few months. My principles are in a mess.

I must confess I started using an Iphone4 whilst on the 2011 Mongol
Rally. I had the phone through work, though I didn't
have a good reason to use the Iphone until on the trip.

The Iphone4 feature I fell in love with was its camera. It takes
excellent videos too, and it was a pure joy to look back on them in the Photos
application and the Places feature was a sheer bonus.

I ditched my Canon IXUS 1000 HS
months ago because it sucked. The Iphone and NexusS feature I can't live without
is Geotagging. I did come
across a small Canon camera with a geotagging
feature, but the sales person
said you need to use special software to enable it. Fuck that! Even if the
sales person was wrong, a long GPS acquisition
time seems to be
the case for camera without a data SIM card. Again the Iphone4 seems really
fast, faster than the Android NexusS for geotagging an image. In fact, what I
love about the Iphone4 is that it doesn't even show it's geotagging, it just does it
(with good results), so it's just one less thing to worry about.

This Tuesday I have to return my work Iphone4 since I am moving to Malaysia and
I will have to return to using the Nexus S which has a long list of faults.

The Android Nexus S is incredibly sluggish, like walking through mud when using
it. The Android keyboard is almost unusable next to the Iphone4's.

The NexusS battery is insanely bad. It's half way when the Iphone4 would be 80%
doing more things. The Iphone4 also seems to charge incredibly quickly, unlike
the NexusS.

The screen on the Iphone4 feels bigger. Using the NexusS is like using a screen
that's half this size... the NexusS feels claustrophobic next to the Iphone4.

Some things about the Iphone4 that sucked are:

Had to get operator to allow the wifi spot feature which I could never get my laptop connected to

Apple's Mail client sucks, search seemed broken

You can't tether on Iphone in Arch (at least I could not figure it out) and that just super sucks. Android tethering is a joy.

Don't understand notifications on Ios5. For e.g. it tells me I have FB update, but it's sluggish to open FB app and then I have to update again to see the message. w.t.f.? (Still it's better than say tweetdeck falling over all the time on Android)

Besides those complaints I will seriously miss the Iphone4. I hate to sound like a complete fan boy, but I don't think I can cope without it.

NexusS takes horrible pictures and just the sluggish UI will piss me off no
end. Android ICS 4.0 seems even slower and more bloated than the 2.3.6... so
this feels seriously like a down grade and I don't see Android rectifying their
sucky bloatware trajectory.

I want to keep with a more "open phone" like Android, but tbh I also like to
argue I care really about the browser. For me in the mobile Web industry, I feel
Safari on Iphone is the browser to target.

During boarding school I took a break from all things Internet, but by Bath
University I was back... this time on Quakenet. Thanks to Quake & QWTF clans.
There is a chat channel on Quakenet with a few hardcore
BUNCS members from 1998 that we are still on.

Since University I've had a VPS and long enjoyed a screen & irssi session on
Freenode to complement most of my working activities. I've lurked on
#whatwg since its inception and I've asked
countless stupid questions on a variety channels like #bash with familiar
regulars like greycat & twkm.

I've also been on OFTC for years, mainly because of Debian projects like Debian
Live & lately ikiwiki.

Refreshingly the W3C as a organisation use
IRC to facilitate meetings. It has
a rather excellent bot to help
scribe and produce minutes of meetings on the Web. Really would like to see
more of this.

I like to think I've introduced some folks to IRC and I was quite pleased to
get 3 collegues recently on IRC. In my previous workplace we sat around the
table and we were all on Gtalk, so there was no need for a company IRC channel.

So the four of us on a Freenode channel was immediately controversial. Freenode
is only for "Free and Open Source Software communities" and we at the
company were mainly communicating tbh about company type bullshit. So where do
you go if you want an IRC channel for your company? Beats me. Update: Friends
tell me their companies run an ircd at their workplace... yikes... another
hurdle!

The barrier to entry to the world of IRC communication is outrageously high for
businesses.

Setting up chanserv for the "business" channel to cater for employees with a
password or rather to limit a certain IP range is non-trivial.

Next a distributed network probably requires some sort of nick registration.
Took me personally ages to bother to register my nick on Freenode. Scripting a
nickserv identify rule for a variety of IRC clients is another PITA.

Then there is question of users who connect from their local machines and
basically drop off (leaving countless annoying quit and joined messages) when
they for example change between wlan0 and eth0. Hence missing out on a
potential backlog of messages. My colleagues are smart people, but I can't
get all of them to use tmux/screen & irssi can I?! It's expensive for a start.

Furthermore I have the problem where the usual shell I run irssi in the UK is
just too slow from Malaysia. So what now? Get a new VPS and re-configure stuff
like IP masks? What a massive & expensive PITA.

So with the problems outlayed above, I think IRC is seriously in trouble. It
really rang true for me as the co-working space in Malaysia, full of smart
people... I'm the only person on IRC. They prefer
Stackoverflow or Gtalk for discussions. Lack of
Asian IRC servers is also a little worrying.

I like to think IRC could pull through well into 21st century if they solved
the back channel (reconnect) problem and if IRC had a decent Web front end.
Freenode's webchat seems broken
half the time, for example too many connections from one IP.